Tag: eu

22 SEPTEMBER: All going splendidly. A few people turned up to hear the boss today. Well, no one important, but at least it wasn’t all empty seats! (I told her Friday matinees weren’t the best idea, but you know her. She always knows best.)

The old dear cackled on a bit in her usual way, and frankly, I dropped off for a bit as you do after a good luncheon. But I’m sure she socked it to Johnny Foreigner. Told them we’d stick around for longer. Ha ha. That made them sit up. Well, those that were awake, anyway.

But we’re Brits. We’ve never felt at home with all these people speaking foreign at us and their foreign courts and, I mean look at the democratic deficit. Why, it’s a European dictatorship. No. The majority of decent hardworking British families up and down the country are jolly glad we’re putting these foreigners in their place at last.

Mark my words, they’ll run after us begging for trades deals, as will the rest of the world. And we’ll return to our rightful place at the head of the list of senior and important countries leading the world forward under Bor… I mean Theresa.

Er, we just need time, and Liam needs to get his royal yacht built… but once we’re up and running, nothing will stop us.

Leaving you some pics I’ve taken or been sent on my journeys around the world to save you decent British people from this European dictatorship.

Correction, here’s what it means for you for a few months, till the UK leaves all that behind. Don’t you love that, although it is an EU/Canada treaty, somehow the EU flag has disappeared and another, relatively unassociated one, has replaced it? Odd that! A mere oversight, soon to be corrected, I suspect.

But don’t get too attached to the jobs. Remember that in March 2019 they will dry up… Oh, and I see they haven’t removed the UK flag and replaced it with the other signatory to the treaty yet. Sure to happen soon, though. Don’t worry. It’s in the “capable” hands of Liam.

Progressive you say? Taking people and the environment into account, you say?

Oh dear no. That would never do.

No, leave that nonsense to the progressive go ahead countries in the world. Much better for us to stay with the good old days of Empire where folk knew their place, we knew where we were and what was what.

But, strangely, still no one in Liam’s department has sorted the flags thing out. Probably too busy with plans for the royal yacht that Liam’s going to sail around the world on accompanied by Kate Middleton.

But wait! Having Tweeted this last night, the Department for International Trade, more of which you can read about here, removed these tweets this morning. They must have seen the flag error at last.

Or maybe someone pointed out to them that rejoicing in the good fortune of Europe, fortune the UK will not benefit from for more than a few months, only made the UK look sadder and more lonely and isolated.

Still, maybe Liam will sort out his royal yacht and sail off into the sunset, Kate at his side and retake the Empire for his Queen.

I wonder if William will hang out with Adam while they are off on their adventures.

You may remember that we at Munguin’s Republic were pleased when Corbyn won the Labour leadership over the bunch of Blairite Tory-lite contenders.

We were happier still when the disloyal ex- front benchers tried to remove him and first one, and then another, no-hoper, third-rater stood against him, and he not only beat them, but beat them by an ever bigger margin than his first victory.

We laughed too, at Dugdale’s off on relationship with him. He was useless, then he was the leader and would lead them to victory, then he was useless again, and so on… Not quite sure where she is with him at the moment.

We don’t rate and indeed have never have rated Dugdale from way back when she was the Noble ffoulkes’ assistant and ran a blog. We’ve no idea what she is like as a person, but as a political leader, she is worse than useless and she’ll never be the first minister.

However, we did rate Corbyn. A proper Labour man, we thought. And we laughed like a drain (even if he did win some seats from the SNP) when he overturned Mayhem’s expectations of an overwhelming victory in her humiliating 2017 General Election. The one she couldn’t lose, but that put paid to “strong and stable”, and left her even more weak and wobbly than before.

OK, we didn’t like his attitude to Scotland, but reckoned that with a bit of time, and given the chance to develop from being simply a North London MP into a supranational leader, he would learn about us, learn what makes us tick… and conclude that we’re not Englishmen with Mc in front of our names. We thought too that he might come to respect the SNP for the left of centre party it was. OK, opposition party but with policies worthy of respect.

Wrong. He must get his information about the SNP from the Daily Mail.

He came to Scotland this summer to tour marginal seats that Labour might hope to take from the SNP. (Taking seats from the SNP will NOT reduce the number of seats the Conservatives hold… and at the next election they may have a proper leader, a real challenge and not the chaotic, stupid, weak, uninspired and uninspiring waste of space they have now.) But no, Jeremy only wanted to take seats from the SNP.

Unfortunately, he seems to have learned nothing about Scotland.

He seems to think that we are a nation of England.

He appears to be unaware that we have a separate legal system and totally separate laws. He is clearly also unaware that parts of the Kingdom of Denmark are members of the EU, and other parts are not.

He has criticised the SNP for failing to nationalise the railways. This despite Labour in England failing to nationalise the railways in 1997 when they fought an election campaign on the matter, and for the following 13 years in which they were in power and could have done so at a stroke.

He seems not to know that it was against UK law (including in Labour’s 13 year governance of the UK) for railways in Scotland to be privatised, until very recently (after the last franchise was awarded). Nor did he seem aware that since that law changed, the Minister for Transport has been working on a plan of how to do this. (NB, I’m not entirely sure why the Herald would call ScotRail troubled, given that it is the best performing rail service in the UK. Odd how the press just hates the Scottish government.)

He doesn’t know about Scottish Water still belonging to the people instead of being a money making concern as in England and Wales.

It would seem that no one told him about the Scottish government mitigating some of the worst of the Conservative’s harsh social security policies. More than £100 million of relief for young people who need housing benefit; for anyone forced to live in homes with a bedroom they do not want or need, due to a shortage of housing, for example.

He gives the impression of knowing nothing about the setting up of a social security ministry in Scotland that will not operate sanctions that apply in Tory England and Labour Wales.

And he is either ignorant of, or has chosen to ignore, the fact that from next year, carers in Scotland will be £600 a year better off than they are in the UK. And that there will be extra help for the poorest parents.

In all that he has been saying, Mr Corbyn has failed to explain why the Welsh government, a Labour government, has seemingly failed to mitigate Tory cuts. I challenge Mr Corbyn to suggest these changes to Wales, and to pledge them for England should he be their prime minister.

And his volte face on the single market and customs union, is singularly unimpressive.

I had great hopes for Mr Corbyn. I feel a bit let down.

His motto does seem to be, Tories are a pain, but SNP, no matter what they do, are plain BAD and must be expunged, even if the method of achieving this is to lie through one’s teeth.

I’m getting the impression from the net tonight that Mrs May has proposed that Northern Irish citizens will continue to be British and Irish. It is, she says, their birthright.

OK, I can absolutely understand that…although they live in two different countries. Countries really different, the one from the other. One a modern, forward looking, small republic getting on with making its way as an integrated European country of the 21st Century. The other a faded world power with an antiquated system of government including royal princes and aristocrats, secret privy councils and special instruments, where old men walk backwards down steps whilst bowing to a superior being, and they launch massive aircraft carriers, but can’t afford any aircraft to put on them. Punching above their weight.

Or prats, as we call them.

Anyway, as I understand it, currently, a Northern Irelander is an NI subject of Her Majesty, a British subject of Her Majesty, a European citizen and a citizen of the Irish Republic.

And currently, as a Scot, I am a Scottish subject of Her Majesty, a British subject of Her Majesty and a European citizen.

Mrs May says she doesn’t want to take away the birthright of a Northern Irish subject, Irish citizenship, and thus a European citizenship, but I can go fiddle, because my birthright to be a European citizen, is worth nothing to her.

I wonder why Northern Irish subjects are being treated differently, and better than, Scots. (English and Welsh subjects voted for this so I feel less sympathy for them.) The word “troubles” wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would it?

Interestingly, I hear that English barrister, Jolyon Maugham, has tweeted asking if any of his followers are human rights lawyers, and asking “Is there a case here?”.

I look forward to hearing the outcome.

Sorry for the rant, but I’m actually really angry about this. Normally, to lose your citizenship, you have to do something horrific. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, so why am I being stripped of my citizenship and all the rights that it confers on me?

**********

OH YES, AND…

Apparently Big Ben will stop sounding for four years while maintenance work is done on the tower as part of the massive (and hugely expensive) renovation of their parliament at Westminster.

There are two reasons for this:

There will be workmen in the tower, presumably trying to stop the whole horrible edifice sliding into the Thames, Lords, Commons and all;

and

The clock needs to be taken to pieces to be cleaned and repaired itself. Like the rest of Westminster, it’s run down and decaying… not to mention dirty.

The health and safety issue isn’t unreasonable. Y’know, these clocks that can be heard over a wide distance are ear-splittingly loud close-up.

But no show without Punch! Making an unwelcome return to the UK today (Wednesday), Theresa waded into the debate. (Why are they having a debate about it for heaven’s sake? It’s a bloody clock.) She wants it looked into, because…well because she probably wants to keep “Outraged, Tunbridge Wells”, a Daily Mail regular and Tory voter, from having a stroke or something.

And, after all, why would the average Daily Mail reader give a damn about workmen being deafened every 15 minutes. They are only working class, why do they even need ears?

Most likely May gets involved in these things because she’s more at home with trivia than with the hard facts of Brexit and Rail Fares, and hospitals and schools and all the other stuff that is so entirely dismal on her watch. (Remember the Easter Eggs?)

I mention this because it’s an amusing little pointer to what goes through the head of our dreadful prime minister, however, unlike the removal of my citizenship, I really don’t give a stuff if Big Ben slips quietly into the Thames and is never heard again.. and as for Outraged of Tunbridge Wells… Aye, well.

Goodness me, changing the habits of a lifetime, the UK has decided not to poke its nose into another country’s business. May be something to do with a prime minister desperate for a trade deal on any terms… Surely it cannot be that she doesn’t have a problem with white supremacists.

Of course, maybe she’s just too busy looking after the “Just Getting By”, concentrating on coming out of the single market and customs union whilst staying in the single market and customs union, and having a secure border while leaving the border open…or maybe she’s genuinely got lost in the Alps.